The Pew Institute has just released a poll showing that a good majority of Americans don’t have a problem with what the US government has been doing with the logs…
Traveling rather far afield as I continue the ground work a new non-fiction book to be called Road through Time, I came upon this marvelous BBC series on human migration:…
The air right now is heavy with the smell of Russian olives. Not olives, but certainly a native of the Russians steppes, these hardy trees are considered a nuisance in…
An extremely important conference is being held today on the future of Mount Royal–but it may be too late. In a couple of years, four health establishments on the flanks…
I just read a really intersting travel book In Search of Geghis Khan by Tim Severin. In it, he recounts his attempt to ride with Mongolians from Ulaan Bataar west…
Pollsters have been insisting that even though fewer people can be reached by telephone today, polling still is a valid way of predicting electoral outcomes. They’ve turned to elelctronic polling…
Trees are great. Not only do they provide a feast for the eye and shade for the body, they absorb carbon dioxide. You might say they are nature’s CO2 sequestering…
While walking in Mount Royal Cemetery on Saturday I was surprised and delighted to here a cricket. Usually they come later in the season, but perhaps the very warm weather…
I’m not a systematic gardener, I don’t keep notes about what blooms when or even a list of what I need to get for next year. But I do know…
Well, the kitchen sink was making burping noises but wasn’t backed up. My favourite economist/ébèniste wanted to make sure there wasn’t a disaster in the making though. So he took…
Crusading Canadian writer and translator Wayne Grady has a story about trying to talk Dr. Henry Morgentaler into giving him an extended interview for a magazine article. The good doctor,…
Reading and the love of books can’t encouraged too soon. The Curious George books by H.A. and Margaret Rey were great favourites of our kids and Jeanne has delighted in…
Lots and lots of depressing news coming when the world in this part of the world is ablaze with luminous greens. How about this for an anthem? When it comes…
It seems that a few unhappy Anglophones are trying to whip things up again by starting a new Equality party, version 2.0. A rally was held on the weekend in…
Montreal’s Jardin botanique, as I’ve been saying here recently, is one of the loveliest places around. Evenn this morning, with a steady rain falling, Jeanne would have spent the whole…
I’ve put it off long enough–got to do some cleaning today. No time for any reflections other than to say that the kitchen floor is awfully dirty. Since Thomas is…
I’ve mentioned before how I don’t ride bikes, but I must admit I like the idea of people riding all over the city. Yesterday I walked from our place to…
Today is the first day I’ve ever had to boil water. Every summer there are warnings for communities in the hinterland that the supply is low, or there’s been a…
One of the things I’ve been doing for years is volunteer for a three hour shift once a week at a local children’s hospital. I rock babies, play with toddlers,…
What’s this nonsense of starting a petition to change the May holiday from Victoria Day/the Queen’s Birthday to include reference to First Nations? I can readily understand renaming the third…
